-Mass
My Meta in Canada has been doing a slow grow league for the past couple of months and we have finally gotten to 1750pts this month for our games. As we’ve been growing in points, I’ve been slowly adding more and more infantry and different infantry combos to my army lists that have been supplementing the multiple House Hold Knight bricks with Noble Lord (Cavalry) in my army. The infantry I’m going to be talking about today is the Steel Legion, and what the Imperial Officer can do for them.
The Steel Legion are Heavy Restricted Infantry with solid stats and a good point cost of 150 for 3 stands. They only have 1 special rule of Cleave 2 on their card but the stats of Movement 5, Clash 3, Attack 1, Wound 1, Resolve 3 and Defense 3. For Command Models we have the classic Leader and Standard Bearers as well as the Drillmaster who will be providing the Fury 1 Draw Event. When playing Steel Legion, I would strongly recommend getting all 3 Command Models and filling this unit to 6 stands for their regiment. This makes sure they can hit accurately and hard while having some defensive stats and extra models to sacrifice as they march up to get to the big juicy Apex Predator you want removed from the table. These are just the base rules. We’re going to turn this up to 11 and make the Steel Legion a true terror on the table.
How are we going to do that you might be asking yourself, well our good friend the Imperial Officer is going to be a huge help.
The Imperial Officer is not a combat character with clash 2 and 4 attacks, there’s better characters in the faction who can do that. He does have good defensive stats at Resolve 3 and Defense 3 but what we’re really looking at is his buffs through battlefield Drills that he can activate 2 of each turn as well as Heirlooms we will be discussing later on.
He has six battlefield drills and you can split them down the middle for range regiments and melee regiments as for their uses. Today we will be looking at the three melee battlefield drills. Our first one is Bastion 1 at 20 points what allows you to “Until end of Round, the Stand (and Stands in its Regiment) have +X Defense.” This will get the Steel Legion and the Imperial Officer to Defence 4 when you draw him increasing their survivability into a lot of other enemy regiments as well as any unwanted duels the Imperial Officer might have to deal with. The Double Time Drill is fantastic, and a must if you’re playing Steel Legion. For only 10 points you can do some crazy combos. Double Time is as follows “Draw the next Command Card. If that Command Card is for the active Character Stand’s Regiment (i.e. the Regiment the Character Stand is in), that Regiment Acts immediately even if the Regiment is not currently on the Battlefield. If it Marches twice, it may make an additional March Action. Once the Regiment has completed its Actions, the Character Stand then takes his or her Action. If the drawn Command Card is not the Character Stand’s Regiment, place it on the bottom of your Command Stack. The Character Stand then takes their Action.” This is where the fun begins with the Steel Legion. When they come onto the table you want them to get up the board fast with Three March Orders you can do just that. In your command deck you will put the Imperial officer first then the Steel legion. Draw the Officer and do the Double Time and then Bastion Battlefield Drills what you can do both of as the Imperial Officer can just do that. Then march your Steel Legion 16” up the board while being Defense 4 due to Bastion. Every turn after this one, keep putting the Imperial Officer then Steel Legion right after one another in your command deck as you want the Steel Legion to have Bastion as soon as you can, and Double Time makes them activate immediately and you don’t have to triple march with the Battlefield Drill. You can have the Steel Legion charge and clash, or inspire and clash when already in melee with an enemy Regiment. The third march only happens if they have marched twice before.
The Last melee Battle Field Drill is the Furry Draw event Drill and we already have it due to the Drill Master that comes with the Steel Legion. So, no point in picking it up again as Bastion and Double Time are so much better for what we are doing with the Steel Legion.
Next on our list of buffs is Heirlooms.
The Imperial Officer can take a ton of Heirlooms but the one we’re taking today to boost the Steel Legion is Armor of Dominion for 40pts. This may seem like a high price to pay but for what the armor does it’s completely worth it. Enemy Stands in contact with the Character lose the Cleave X and Smite Special Rules while in contact with this Character Stand. Most Regiments run 3 stands wide and with our Imperial officer in the middle of our Regiment of Steel Legion that will allow him to connect with the front row of enemy stands and take away Cleave and Smite from a lot of melee Regiments. This will shoot his and the Steel Legion’s survivability way up as this will make any fury or leader attacks also lose Cleave and Smite. Things you have to look out for with the armour is if your opponent has a ton of stands behind his front row and have Support +X special rule to get attacks, as these will not be countered by the Armor of Dominion as well as any Regiments that are bigger then 3 wide as the corner stand will get their Cleave and Smite rules due to not touching our Imperial Officer. Armour Piercing, Brutal Impact, Deadly Blades as well as Precise shot will not be blocked by the Armour of Domination. Some of these abilities you will just take wounds and there’s nothing you can do about it. Make sure to have Bastion Draw Event active when you do start taking range damage to help negate some of this damage. Good targets for our Steel Legion are other Heavy Infantry that is more expensive and only running 3 stands. Looking at you Dwaghom Dragon Slayers or Monsters such as any Jotnar and Apex Predators as you turn their attacks into flimsy noodles by removing their cleave and your Cleave 2 base on the Steel Legion will start cutting through their higher Defensive stats.
The last buff our Imperial officer is going to provide to the Steel legion is from his Retinue and we want the Tactical 3 benefit. You will need to pick up both Tactical 1 and 2 before this what will be a total of 50pts. Tier 1 will let you reroll 1 failed resolve dice per tier in tactical. 3 dice reroll for your resolve will help keep more Steel Legion alive. Tier 2 allows you to take a second Battlefield drill so we want this to do the Double time and Bastion combo already spoken of. Finally, Tier 3 gives the character and their Regiment the Flank special rule. Flank Special rule doesn’t put a die for that regiment into the reinforcement dice pool when rolling for reinforcements at the start of the turn. Instead, you decide if they are coming on the round, they would be available to come on or are delaying them until they would normally automatically come onto the table. The Flank rule is fantastic in general, and for the Steel Legion it’s exactly what we want to get this Regiment onto the table fast and start getting into the action even faster with Double Time.
The last thing I’m going to be talking about is army rules for 100 Kingdoms. To maximize your Steel Legion, you can take either Relentless Drills or Veterans. Relentless Drills gives Support +1 Special rule on Infantry units and is good for large bricks of units to get more attacks in. If you’re running a more Infantry focused army list, I would recommend using Relentless Drills. I however like to have some House Hold Knights in my list with the Steel Legion and will be going with Veterans, what doubles all the costs for any command models in the Regiment but once you have selected Leader, Standard Bearer and an additional command model you get +1 Clash or Volley as well as +1 Resolve to a Max of 3. Though we won’t be getting the resolve bonus from Veterans, we will be getting the Clash bonus. At Clash 4 and Inspire our Steel Legion will be Rerolling 6s when they attack.
Let me paint you a picture. You have invested 570pts into an Imperial Officer with Tactical tier 3, Armour of Domination, Bastion and Double Time Battlefield Drills. While attaching him into a Regiment of Veteran Steel Legion of 6 stands with Leader, Standard Bearer and Drillmaster. Its turn 3 you use flank and combo your Imperial Officer and Steel Legion with Double time and Bastion to get them 16” up the table and beside your House Hold Knights with Defense 4. You weather some random shooting from your opponent and once again combo the Officer and Steel Legion on turn 4 to charge into a heavy hitting target on your opponent’s side while being safe with bastion and removing any way to reduce your defense with your Armour of Domination. You start smashing away and run the table with this brick of fast, accurate, tanky boys. Ready to be a Menace of the Battlefield.